


Times You Can't Even Breathe

by leviathanchronicles



Series: Danganronpa Character Studies [3]
Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Character Study, Check the author's note!, Crushes, M/M, Other characters mentioned - Freeform, Post canon, Trauma, discussions of blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 20:11:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18506215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/pseuds/leviathanchronicles
Summary: On dwelling on the little things and learning how to stop doing that, maybe.





	Times You Can't Even Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> whoa hey okay notes.  
> 1\. i'm not going to tag this bc it's literally like three lines and it isn't requited but i do reference souda's crush on sonia jic that just kills it for anyone  
> 2\. as with my other dr character studies, i just mix and match whatever bits of canon that i like. odds are anything i got wrong is just sm i actively chose to ignore  
> 3\. someday i'll write a real hajisouda fic for the three people that still care about hajisouda. for now have this fic where souda is very into guys but also very clueless  
> 4\. ALSO i write souda as v adhd w like. rejection sensitivity + a lack of emotional control!

Take f(x)=a. As n approaches infinity, a approaches what value?

Math is easy. It calms him down.

If a approaches infinity, the limit does not exist.

Infinity divided by infinity is...

* * *

 He doesn’t know how long he was asleep, but he knows he was never too good at keeping up with his hair, anyway--the roots are dark, and he can’t find a single decent hat on this island, much less hair dye and bleach, so he just lets the color show.

His eyes are worse, anyways. Someone had the decency to take his contacts out beforehand rather than let them burn into his eyes (though the thought of someone messing with his eyes makes him cringe just as much), so he wakes up with blurred vision. On instinct, he tries to reach for his glasses, and he ends up just waving his arm around aimlessly.

He eventually manages to sit up, squinting at the strange room around him, at the other survivors, who are going through their own adjustment period.

It’s unfair that they all have mostly perfect eyesight--he thinks, anyways--he doesn’t notice Fuyuhiko’s scar until later--they see him, actually see him, in all the dumb metaphorical ways, too. All he can make out is their blurred forms, which pull back when they first turn towards him.

His heart pounds with the always underlying belief that this is all he has and if he loses it, he’ll be alone again, and somehow, this time, it’ll be worse.

Contacts are hard to come by now, in this post-despair world, much less colored ones, and the Future Foundation isn’t going to waste resources to help him keep up a charade he already lost. He wears the cheap glasses they send his way instead. Pretty soon, everyone else gets used to it, but he still feels strange when he catches his own reflection.

* * *

 Kazuichi Souda exists in extremes.

It’s something he’s working on--greys are blurry, scary and indiscernible, but black and white are a bit too sharp, it turns out.

* * *

 “You shouldn’t care about what other people think,” Kazuichi says. He’s thirteen and as comfortable in his own skin as anybody in the middle of puberty can be. He kind of had to get used to losing his dignity--his clothes can’t keep up with growth spurts, his hair and skin are greasy with inconsistent access to water, and his personality isn’t super cool, anyway.

“Everyone wants to be popular,” his best friend (even in memories, Kazuichi flinches at his name) says, and Kazuichi hears it as “no one wants to be unpopular.”

His friend turns to look over Kazuichi’s shoulder--they’re doing homework--and their legs brush against each other. Kazuichi yanks his leg away, turns his own body so he can just show his friend the paper. There’s some weird energy in the air, and it makes his head buzz.

His friend never seems to notice these sorts of things. Kazuichi is just more sensitive, maybe.

“Nah, I’m good,” Kazuichi says, and this is true. “If people like me, I have a new friend, and if they don’t, I just have to move on.”

“You really believe that?”

“Why wouldn’t I? I mean, it worked for us, didn’t it?”

* * *

 Sonia is the most beautiful girl Kazuichi has ever met. His chest flutters when she’s in the same room as him. He could probably live in his adoration for her.

Sonia gave into despair, caused just as many deaths, created just as much chaos.

Reconciliation, reconciliation.

* * *

He doesn’t remember any glitches in the simulation until a few weeks after he wakes up. He’s working, but he hasn’t quite gotten his hands to stop shaking yet, and he ends up with a deep cut for his troubles.

The blood is red, dark dark red, and at first, that catches him off guard. That isn’t right--but then his thoughts twist around on themselves. He blinks, and remembers--the pink was abnormal, he just didn’t realize while it was happening. Nothing ever seems strange until after you wake up.

He wonders why that is--Chihiro’s doing, probably, be it intentional or not. After all, the program was meant to inspire happiness and hope. Violent murder and gore were never meant to be part of things.

He’s washing up after getting the cut taken care of, and he looks up at the mirror--it’s old, and everything it reflects ends up weirdly blurry. It doesn’t soften color at all, though. His hair is a faded pink now, and it isn’t nearly purple-y enough to be called “blood” colored, but the longer he stares at it, the easier it is to imagine blood dried into wood, concrete, fabric, faded from fruitless scrubbing.

Despite this, he knows he isn’t going to change it. He’s used to the pink now--he put in a request for hair dye rather recently--and so he reminds himself that it isn’t actually the color of blood, he’s just got some wires crossed.

He also knows that he’s never going to be able to see pink as pink, not now; the simulation was meant to alter their brains, and it did. Pink has the same nauseating connotations as red, now.

Maybe it’s a good reminder.

He runs into Hajime on his way out of the bathroom. Hajime nods at him, notices the tears in his eyes, and pauses.

“Hey--”

But Kazuichi is already thinking about work again. He doesn’t hear, or he pretends not to--it doesn’t really matter.

* * *

 Stupid quotes in cursive script, notes on the bottom of stationary.

To love and be loved, one must first know and be known.

* * *

Kazuichi wants to trust Hajime innately, he really, really does. He tries to, because Hajime is the first person in years that he’d consider a real friend. When Hajime sees him with his glasses and his dark roots and his very clearly forced teeth, he somehow looks exhausted and affectionate all at once.

Kazuichi kind of loves hanging out with Hajime, to be honest. Hajime listens to him talk about stupid things that no one really cares about (Kazuichi knows this), gets upset at all the right moments but then turns around and tells him when he’s being irrational. Kazuichi wants to--he doesn’t even know, hang out with Hajime, show him how to build stuff even though he’s an awful teacher, practice flirting with him--not with him! Just around him. Like, tell him all his best lines, so he can decide if they’re actually any good, that’s all.

The thing is, though, for Kazuichi, the line between adoration and hatred is extremely thin. Not because anyone’s done anything wrong, it’s just that sometimes he realizes how dangerous friendships are. Getting abandoned right now would suck, because even though people are slowly waking up, he still doesn’t have many options. Plus, there’s nowhere for him to go, and he knows himself, he knows how he’d end up just panicking and crying and embarrassing himself.

He does just that one day, actually, ends up with tears streaming down his face because he remembered his old best friend, who’s probably dead now, and what if it was his fault? And Hajime clearly isn’t a fan of watching people cry, but maybe he’s used to Kazuichi freaking out, because he’s all quiet and “hey, hey…” and he doesn’t even say anything that comforting, but he’s there.

The thing is, though, Kazuichi is also a coward. This is common knowledge, but he thinks maybe people don’t understand how deep it goes. The thing is, Hajime is Hajime--he said as such when they first woke up and started to sort through their memories. “I’m Hajime Hinata, you guys know me” and Kazuichi does know him.

But there’s that underlying fear, you know? Because Kazuichi knows Hajime, but he doesn’t know Izuru, and he doesn’t know if, at any point in time, there’s more of one or the other. He wants to trust Hajime, because he has no real reason to believe that Hajime is lying. And honestly, he wouldn’t begrudge Hajime for lying about this--it’s big and scary, and if Kazuichi can lie about his hair color, Hajime can lie about anything, really.

That doesn’t mean Kazuichi isn’t going to be afraid, though.

He tries to be less obvious about it--it’s easier to ignore the alarm bells in his mind now, if only because they’ve become so commonplace that he had to learn to block them out or spend the rest of his life crying. When things start to get overwhelming, he takes a deep breath, and he works on something, keeps his hands busy until the moment passes.

Sometimes, he just talks it out. It’s scary, too, but he hasn’t regretted it yet.

* * *

Infinity divided by infinity is undefined. Manipulate one or both expressions to find an answer.

**Author's Note:**

> i love comments, critiques, etc! also, if you have a request for a character study, 100% hmu! i have one half-finished for the imposter (is that oxymoronic?) but yk me and my inability to update more than twice a year apparently


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